


I don't c'hair

by hundrix



Category: Original Work
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-17
Updated: 2020-10-17
Packaged: 2021-03-09 00:07:09
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,407
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27065368
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hundrix/pseuds/hundrix
Summary: Ren finds out that they have a strange ability, and an even stranger drawback to it.
Kudos: 1





	I don't c'hair

**Author's Note:**

> It was done for a writing contest on reddit, I'll say which one when the results are here. The goal was to write something with a prompt that someone else had given you.  
> The prompt is in the notes at the end so you won't be spoiled of the story by it.  
> Also note that it did not inspired me much, but I decided to try to stick to the prompt as mush as possible for the exercise.

Ren's day has been exactly like every other work day up until now. It was the afternoon, and Ren was having a break with two of their colleagues, Sam and Tina, in one of the break room. Which was nice until John came there with one of his co-worker, probably one that was as annoying as himself.

Ren disliked him very much, as he was the kind of person that never gave a thought about how toxic his behaviour could be, and so he more than often was. Ren was looking into the void in his direction, imagining John dropping his smug self-satisfied smile for at least one second.

They were taken out of their dreaming by a very slight pain in the back of their right thigh. When they emerged, they saw that John was now frowning like he was about to scold his colleague very harshly, except he still had his annoying smile on the face, and that gave him a very uncanny look.

Terry (was it Terry? Ren asked themselves) seemed to realise it too and started jokingly asking John what was wrong with his face. Which quickly turned into a panic situation because apparently he had no idea that he was doing it, he had to check his face to be sure, and he was incapable to stop frowning, even after trying to push his brows up and massage them. The situation was surreal and even Sam and Tina were now kind of worried and started to test him out for stroke symptoms, but he had none other than this strange facial paralysis.

During the crescendo of the panic, Ren felt the same kind of pain in the back of their right thigh multiple times, every time a little bit stronger, which forced them to stand up as the last one hit to massage the area. It almost felt like being waxed there, and it was really not a pleasant sensation.

When they finished massaging their thigh (and the pain had almost vanished), they realised John had finally stopped frowning, and was moving his eyebrows to be sure he was in control again.

Sam and Tina advised Terry to pay attention to John for the rest of the afternoon, and that John better go see a doctor because it was definitely not something that should be happening.

The last Ren saw of John this day was him going trough the break room door, and a particular detail caught their attention. John was not smiling any more.

* * *

On the evening of the same day , when changing to go to bed, Ren took a look at their thigh in the bathroom, and noticed that a medium patch of hair was missing from the very area were the pain was. They took a look at their pant to try to find something that could have glued to their hair, but they only found the hairs that were on their thigh, and nothing else.

* * *

Thursday evening was going pretty well. Ren and Jake had eaten at an excellent small restaurant that made traditional Mexican food, and were now enjoying some beverages on a bar where they liked to go. They were approached by two persons who seemed at first nice enough to engage conversation.

They sat with them and presented themselves as Jeffrey and Markus. They were obviously cis guys who had no idea what they got into. Ren was a non-binary androgynous presenting person (not that every NB presents as androgynous, it was just how Ren liked their appearance), and Jake was a trans man who definitely looked as a very fit twink (the benefits of five years of hormonal treatment majored by a ton of efforts at the gym for almost as long).

So those two guys were probably not too subtly looking for hookups this evening, which was not really a problem for neither Ren nor Jake, but the fact that they assumed that both of them were also cis would more than probably, as usual, be a problem at some point.

And so it happened, and the more Jake and Ren tried to introduce subtly the fact that trans people existed, the more the two dudes slowly started to sound like the stereotypical transphobes gays they were.

Which brought Ren patience to an end real quick. Thankfully Jake was a very patient person who took every occasion to educate people, so he tried doing that as best as he could. But Ren did not had the energy to do the same lately, even though usually they tried, and so they just waited for the exchange between Jake and the two guys to either empty Jake patience (which could be very long), or make them so bored of continuously arguing that they would just go (which was a lot more probable).

As Ren was fixing them with less and less composure, it happened again. Ren felt a small pain on the left of their belly, and the two guys were now frowning like they would have been accused of having no penises. Jake looked at Ren worriedly, as Ren started to maybe understand what was going on. Ren started to type a text on their phone under the table and showed it to Jake:

Don't tell them they're frowning, it think they don't know. I'll explain later.

Jake threw them an interrogative look, but they trusted Ren a lot, so they just continued the conversation.

Now Ren was concentrating to try to understand what was going on, and if it was indeed them that made people forcibly and unknowingly frown. Also they were lucky: the two guys were so focused on handsome Jake that they were not looking a lot at each other.

Ren decided that if they were the one doing this, they would try to stop it when one of the two following situation happened: Jeffrey and Markus look at the other one, or the pain was so awful that it had to stop. As Ren was starting to get used to go get waxed (because they have been going from time to time), they supposed that the first situation would happen first.

And they were wrong. After less than two minutes, they exclaimed a very restrained "FUCK!" as the pain had become the equivalent of a full wax band being ripped. They others enquired what was going on, and Ren pretexted that they had been having belly pain for quite a while now (which falsely explained why they haven't been talking for a while), and used that to get away with Jake.

After they were out and had been walking for a bit, Jake asked what the hell was going on back there. Ren proceeded to untuck their shirt and show Jake (and take a look because they didn't had the occasion to do so) at the place where the pain was. There was a big spot with no particular shape that was totally hairless, and the hairs fell at Ren feet when untucking the shirt.

Ren then proceeded to explain that they thought they could make other people forcibly and unknowingly frown, and that it seemed to pluck their hairs somewhere on their body in "exchange". After Ren made a clueless passer-by frown for some seconds to verify that it was indeed them who was doing this, Jake and them then decided to go to Ren's flat to try a little bit of experimenting of that strange capacity.

* * *

After an evening of testing (and Jake having some good laugh about Ren plucking their own hairs almost everywhere), they came to the following conclusions:

Ren could control at will the movement or stillness of Jake's brows, and with a lot of precision, even movements Jake could not make on his own. Jake had no way to tell what was going on, except by looking in a mirror, or focusing really hard on the top of his field of vision (a lot more than when moving his brows by himself).

Ren could also control their own brows when looking in the mirror, and make them move in ways they could not do it on their own too.

There was no strain left for the person after, even if moving their brows a lot or making them frown really hard for a long time.

Every time Ren used the ability, the moment where they gained control of one's brows, they felt the pain of a single hair being plucked somewhere on them. The longer it lasted, the more hairs where regularly plucked, up until the ninth time (the maximum Ren handle it, twice before giving up) where it felt like a whole wax band had been applied, and where Ren lost focus and therefore stopped the ability. Stopping it would make the number of hairs that would be plucked reset back to one on the next reactivation.

The area where the hairs would be plucked could actually be chosen. It could be at first precise or not, like the whole leg or body, or on a very specific spot somewhere. On the other hand, when the first hair was plucked, the following were always the ones who seemed the closest to it, no matter if the area firstly chosen was precise or not. Also, if a hairless spot was chosen, it seemed to start wherever there was hairs closest to that spot.

Finally, the speed at which the hair plucked themselves could be accelerated. If Ren did not moved Jake's brow at all (but still prevented him from feeling and moving them), the hairs would go every fifteen-ish seconds, down to every less than three seconds when moving his brows a lot.

And when doing it on both of them, the times between each hairs removals were even shorter.

They also thought about trying it on animals later, like Jake's cat, but decided to not do it as they had no way to know if it would be painful of uncomfortable for them, and they were not okay to take the risk to hurt even one of them just for the thrill of experimenting.

As a last test for what has become quite a long night, Ren finished by waxing, this time with an original sticky wax band TM, just next to a big spot on the left leg where they had focused the ability before. It would serve as a control spot for when the hairs would go back, to see if by miracle it also made them grow back slower (which Ren hopped a lot).

Then, calling it a night was an euphemism at this point, and Jake stayed to sleep at Ren's place for the night.

* * *

After a few weeks, Ren had managed to stop using the ability without wanting to (unless the first and second time it happened). They also had the occasion to try to maintain it once on a crowd (there was at least fifteen people), and ended up with almost all of their chest hair being ripped off before even having the reflexes to stop it. Thankfully the power of shame that they would have felt if they had screamed from pain in the middle of the street had been enough to make them restrain from it, but it was definitely not something Ren would do ever again. On the other hand, Ren noticed that none of the problems associated with waxing normally was there: no need to disinfect or hydrate to avoid pimples or dry and painful skin. So pain on the moment, but none after.

Speaking of waxing normally, the test had shown clearly, after less than two weeks, that the hairs where the ability had removed them where not growing again, at least for now. The hairs that had previously been waxed were indeed here again, but the other places were smooth as if it had just been done.

Which brought Ren to maybe change their mind about doing it on crowds again. Ren disliked their hairs a lot, as it brought them dysphoria, and they now had a very good way (not painless though) to get rid of them in what seemed to be a very definitive way.

So Ren decided that they would try to take some time to wander the streets on the evenings (ideally with some friends), so they could use their ability to get rid of every hair that they did not want. Which regrouped for now, from bottom to top, feet, whole legs, butt cheeks (they were not so sure about butt crack as they did not had the courage to test it there), whole torso (front back and shoulders) and beard (because shaving every day was so damn annoying).

They would not touch the other parts for now, because they either were not really problematic for them (like arms and armpits), or they liked to change style from time to time and test new ones (like brows).

They had no problem with not using the ability any more after that, as it would remove hairs where they did not want to. Being able to control people brows had not proven to be especially good at anything, and for them the side effect was what was really interesting. And in case they had made a mistake and the hairs would indeed grow back at some point, they could just get rid of them in the same fashion.

Their plan was on rails.

* * *

Jake and Ren were sipping their beer at the place where the revelations happened. They just had nice Mexican food, because they thought it would be a fun thing to have the end night reproduce the night where it began. Not that it was really the end, as Ren could still use their power, but they had no will to continue to do so.

Ren had wanted to wait a symbolic month after they finished they hair eradication plan, to be sure that they indeed where not coming back. And they didn't. So it was on this symbolic day, a Thursday - as Ren chose the same day they realised they had the ability - that they were meeting to feast on Ren hairs disappearance.

And so they had been spending almost the three last hours making jokes and word plays about hairs. Because sometimes life is more about having fun and jokes than asking yourself rational questions about how and why and how do things work.

**Author's Note:**

> The prompt I had received was :  
> "Someone obtains the ability to make anyone they choose forcibly frown for a short period of time. Each time this power is used, a hair disappears from somewhere on their body; it will never grow back. Once they lose all their hair, the power will be gone forever. What do they do?"


End file.
